Carmina Burana (Orff)

1937 cantata by Carl Orff

Carmina Burana is a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. Its full Latin title is Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis ("Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images"). It was first performed by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937. It is part of Trionfi, a musical triptych that also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The first and last sections of the piece are called "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("Fortune, Empress of the World") and start with "O Fortuna". The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Bavarian State Library, and was issued as facsimile edition by Schott Music.

In 1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. de was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German and Old French. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of spring and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust.

Orff subscribed to a dramatic concept called "Theatrum Mundi" in which music, movement, and speech were inseparable. Babcock writes that "Orff's artistic formula limited the music in that every musical moment was to be connected with an action on stage. It is here that modern performances of Carmina Burana fall short of Orff's intentions." Orff subtitled Carmina Burana a "scenic cantata" in his intention to stage the work with dance, choreography, visual design and other stage action; the piece is now usually performed in concert halls as a cantata. John Butler was the first of several choreographers to tackle the score. His Carmina Burana was premiered by the New York City Opera on September 24, 1959, featuring Carmen de Lavallade, Veronika Mlakar, Scott Douglass, and Glen Tetley. It has since been performed by numerous companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet West, and Richmond Ballet and is now considered a canonical modern ballet work. A danced version of Carmina Burana was choreographed by Loyce Houlton for the Minnesota Dance Theatre in 1978. In honour of Orff's 80th birthday, an acted and choreographed film version was filmed, directed by Jean Pierre Ponnelle for the German broadcaster ZDF; Orff collaborated in its production. Kent Stowell choreographed the work for Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. It premiered on October 5, 1993, with scenic design by Ming Cho Lee. Carmina Burana was used in the collaboration program between Mao Daichi, Japanese actress and former top star of the famed all female troupe Takarazuka Revue, and Yuzuru Hanyu, Japanese figure skater and two time Olympic champion. The program was part of the annual ensemble ice show Yuzuru Hanyu Notte Stellata, an event that commemorates the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The first half of the choreography, where Hanyu skates alone, was choreographed by the Canadian ice dancer and choreographer Shae Lynn Bourne, and the second part, where Hanyu battles against the ‘goddess of fate’ played by Daichi, was choreographed by the Japanese musical theatre choreographer Rino Masaki. Through the performance, Hanyu wanted to convey “a strong message that even though we may feel the pain of disasters that are beyond our control, we must accept them and move on.”

Orff's style demonstrates a desire for directness of speech and of access. Carmina Burana contains little or no development in the classical sense, and polyphony is also conspicuously absent. Carmina Burana avoids overt harmonic complexities, a fact which many musicians and critics have pointed out, such as Ann Powers of The New York Times. Orff was influenced melodically by late Renaissance and early Baroque models including William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi. It is a common misconception that Orff based the melodies of Carmina Burana on neumeatic melodies; while many of the lyrics in the Burana Codex are enhanced with neumes, almost none of these melodies had been deciphered at the time of Orff's composition, and none of them had served Orff as a melodic model. His shimmering orchestration shows a deference to Stravinsky. In particular, Orff's music is very reminiscent of Stravinsky's earlier work Les noces (The Wedding). Rhythm, for Orff as it was for Stravinsky, is often the primary musical element. Overall, Carmina Burana sounds rhythmically straightforward and simple, but the metre changes freely from one measure to the next. While the rhythmic arc in a section is taken as a whole, a measure of five may be followed by one of seven, to one of four, and so on, often with caesura marked between them. Some of the solo arias pose bold challenges for singers: the only solo tenor aria, Olim lacus colueram, is often sung almost completely in falsetto to demonstrate the suffering of the character (in this case, a roasting swan). The baritone arias often demand high notes not commonly found in baritone repertoire, and parts of the baritone aria Dies nox et omnia are often sung in falsetto, a rare example in baritone repertoire. Also noted is the solo soprano aria Dulcissime, which demands extremely high notes. Orff intended this aria for a lyric soprano, not a coloratura, so that the musical tensions would be more obvious.

Carmina Burana was first staged by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937 under conductor de (1892–1967) with the de, staging by de and sets and costumes by Ludwig Sievert. Shortly after the greatly successful premiere, Orff said to his publisher, Schott Music: "Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin." The first American performance was on 10 January 1954, by the University of San Francisco's Scholar Cantorum, at the city's Opera House. Several performances were repeated elsewhere in Germany. The Nazi regime was at first nervous about the erotic tone of some of the poems but eventually embraced the piece. It became the most famous piece of music composed in Germany at the time. The popularity of the work continued to rise after the war, and by the 1960s Carmina Burana was well established as part of the international classic repertoire. The piece was voted number 62 at the Classic 100 Ten Years On, in the top ten of the Classic 100 Voice, and is at number 144 of the 2020 Classic FM Hall of Fame. Alex Ross wrote that "the music itself commits no sins simply by being and remaining popular. That Carmina Burana has appeared in hundreds of films and television commercials is proof that it contains no diabolical message, indeed that it contains no message whatsoever."

The popularity of the work has ensured the creation of many additional arrangements for a variety of performing forces. In 1956, Orff's disciple Wilhelm Killmayer created a reduced version for soloists, SATB mixed choir, children's choir, two pianos and six percussion (timpani + 5), and was authorized by Orff. The score has short solos for three tenors, baritone and two basses. This version is to allow smaller ensembles the opportunity to perform the piece. John Krance's concert band transcription was published in 1968. An arrangement for wind ensemble was prepared by ca (born 1921), who wanted both to give wind bands a chance to perform the work and to facilitate performances in cities that have a high quality choral union and wind band, but lack a symphony orchestra. A performance of this arrangement was recorded by the North Texas Wind Symphony under Eugene Corporon. In writing this transcription, Mas Quiles maintained the original chorus, percussion, and piano parts. Carmina Burana became popular in Greece through its use at the beginning and end of Andreas Papandreou's election speeches from the 1974 legislative election to those of the 1993 legislative election.